Published Resources Details

Conference Paper

Author
Ballinger, Robyn
Title
The nature and culture of water in Victoria's North
In
19th Australasian engineering heritage conference: putting water to work: steam power, river navigation and water supply
Editors
Engineers Australia and Engineering Heritage Australia
Imprint
Engineering Heritage Australia, Barton, Australian Capital Territory, 2017, pp. 36-45
ISBN/ISSN
9781922107923
Url
https://search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/informit.383981029724448
Subject
History of Natural Sciences
Abstract

Landscapes are dynamic, interactive elements in the development of societies. They are formed by the active interplay of natural and cultural (social, economic and political) forces. This requires us to consider what the former character of a landscape has been in order to understand it today.

This paper focuses on the northern plains of Victoria - a place of both scarcity and abundance. The plains country experiences a median annual rainfall of 420mm. But to speak in terms of medians does not describe the rain that falls to double this figure, or the rain that falls to halve it. Early white settlers spoke of a place transformed by rain into a sea of waving grasses as far as the eye could see. Others described the plains without water as a parched and unwelcoming place. The northern plains, like other semi-arid places, have drawn varied cultural responses.

The paper examines how settlers and policy makers have interpreted and interacted with the environment of the semi-arid northern plains of Victoria to create today's landscape. In a period of climate change, it explores how the historical evolution of this landscape has shaped contemporary attitudes to water, and how this knowledge might inform future water policy decisions.

Source
cohn 2018

Related Published resources

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  • 19th Australasian engineering heritage conference: putting water to work: steam power, river navigation and water supply edited by Engineers Australia and Engineering Heritage Australia (Barton, Australian Capital Territory: Engineers Australia, 2017), 536 pp. Details

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